The Government should take a cue from the implementation of the Political Mud-Pit

I wasn't sure where to put this thread, but since it is discussing the Political Mud-Pit forum, I thought I'd put it in that very forum. But maybe it
should go in Political Madness, not sure. Mods if you feel differently then I, feel free to move it for me.

Ok as you the reader are aware, ATS has recently created the Political Mud-Pit forum to sling mud at each other and devolve political discussions down
to silly name calling contests. At first I was mad that ATS would stoop low enough to letting such low brow debate take place on these forums, but
then I got to thinking. These discussions are already happening on the forums, I and others have been complaining about it for a while. The only thing
the mods could do was remove the posts, suspend members or ban them. In other words forced compliance. Argue our way or don't argue here at all.

As I am not a moderator, I cannot speak to what was going on behind the scenes, but I can make some guesses and I'm willing to bet that this attitude
towards these types of arguments wasn't working. The problem was still apparent enough that regular users were still complaining about these kind of
topics. So now tptb on ATS (ha using conspiracy lingo to talk about the moderators

no offense guys) have decided to stop fighting this tide and
limitedly sanction it. Instead of forcing compliance, the moderators are trying to compromise and push these discussions to one forum so that they
don't so heavily pollute other forums.

Now at this point you may be asking, "Hey Krazy, what does this have to do with the government?" Well I'm glad you asked internal monologue that I am
projecting onto my readers. The government tries this forced compliance thing with EVERYTHING it disagrees with. Drugs are bad? Make it illegal.
Prostitution is bad? Make it illegal. Guns are bad? Gotta be illegal. Not enough people with health insurance? Make it illegal not to have it. But as
can be seen from this mentality, forced compliance automatically creates push back. I understand that Newton's third law shouldn't apply socially, but
I think it is a good example here. You push us, we'll push back, even if the thing that you are mandating is going to be overall good for us like
health care.

This brings me to my ultimate point, the government should take a cue from ATS and stop trying to force everyone to comply. Instead, it should try to
create positive incentives to comply. Give the people an incentive to NOT do drugs. Give the people an incentive to get their own healthcare. These
incentives don't have to be monetary benefits either. Raising the cost of government is the last thing I want to do, but with many of these things
that we aren't allowed to do, legalizing them would cut down on MANY of the costs to run government. But for instance, got an addict? Instead of
throwing them in jail because they stuck a needle in their arm and some passerby was disgusted with what he saw, how about a designated place to just
let the addicts be addicts (think third season of the Wire for anyone who's seen that show)? You could also implement programs that help treat these
addictions and set them up in these areas. This compromise accomplishes two goals. It gets the addicts out of sight and mind of people who want
nothing to do with that lifestyle while at the same time allowing the government to monitor that activity for safety issues and such (obviously you
still want to keep these people safe from theft, murder and other harmful actions).

Understand that this isn't a thread to attack Republican policies or Democrat policies, or really any political party's policies, but to admonish the
system as a whole. The government is so obsessed with telling us what we cannot do that it continually creates more and more bureaucracy to try to
keep on top of all these can'ts. But you know, instead of telling a business that we will impose strict fines for failing to fix their industrial
waste dumping, how about we give a tax credit to companies that lead the way in environmentally friendly actions? Instead of throwing a prostitute
that cannot do anything else in jail for whoring herself out, how about we create official places where they can be that require cleanliness and
regular STD testing? Then we can even provide a tax credit for paying their prostitutes a fair, livable wage. Now obviously some of these solutions
are very rough and rudimentary, but they are steps in a different direction then the government wants to walk down. Well the current path isn't
working and is making everything worse by the day. Let's stop doing something that isn't working and try something new. Instead of negative
reinforcement, we try positive reinforcement. It can't make things any worse off than they are now.

For one, that makes too much sense. And if something makes sense, you can bet the Govt. is going to do the opposite.

Two, and this is going to tie into my third point. Prisons are profitable, maybe not for me and you, the average tax payer. But for everyone else
involved, sending people to prison for every little thing makes lots of money for the people running the prisons.

And my last point, the Govt. does not exist for the people any longer, if it ever did. The govt. and all the laws it passes, now exists to generate
profit for itself, the politicians, and all the corporations that are lining their pockets.

Corruption has completely gutted this nation, From the President all the way down to the smallest town councils.

This brings me to my ultimate point, the government should take a cue from ATS and stop trying to force everyone to comply. Instead, it should try to
create positive incentives to comply. Give the people an incentive to NOT do drugs. Give the people an incentive to get their own healthcare. These
incentives don't have to be monetary benefits either.

I'll bite. Much of what you are saying makes sense and some has already been implemented either in the US or outside of the country (think Vegas and
Amsterdam.) My only issue is that much of what you're talking about shouldn't be illegal anyway and maybe we should push to overcome government
stupidity instead of just letting them continue to oppress people. Like Washington and Colorado just did.

Also there is a big assumption in this plan the TPTB actually want to make positive changes in the US. From everything I see it's just the opposite.
How will they maintain the prison for profit industry or keep boosting the militarized police state?

How about relaxed enforcement of existing regulations for continued excellence in upholding them? Instead of yearly visits by the FDA to make sure the
company is up to code, if a company is consistently on par, start increasing the time span between visits. Of course if the company is found to be in
major violation, you would immediately start the regular visits again. It's thinking outside the box. Not every problem needs money thrown at it to
fix it.

I'm responding to both of you since you both said similar things. Yes, I understand if you look at things conspiratorially then yes my solutions would
go against tptb's evil plan to control the masses, but I was just trying to operate under an assumed premise that the government actually wants to fix
these problems. Though in the end, who cares what the government wants? It all starts with us. If we had enough people to voice concerns and solutions
like this, our officials would either have to start implementing them or get voted out.

And Bassago, I understand that some of those things shouldn't be illegal at all, but I'm trying to compromise here for the bleeding hearts who care
about how other people treat their own bodies. They won't be happy unless something is being done, and in a healthy, functioning democracy, compromise
is necessary to run the show well. This, I feel would be a nice compromise to please both sides of the issue.

This brings me to my ultimate point, the government should take a cue from ATS and stop trying to force everyone to comply. Instead, it should try to
create positive incentives to comply. Give the people an incentive to NOT do drugs. Give the people an incentive to get their own healthcare. These
incentives don't have to be monetary benefits either.

If the incentives aren't monetary; what are they?

a gift of drugs, real health care, and a nice gun would be a good incentive
and maybe some beer for top preformers

This brings me to my ultimate point, the government should take a cue from ATS and stop trying to force everyone to comply. Instead, it should try to
create positive incentives to comply. Give the people an incentive to NOT do drugs. Give the people an incentive to get their own healthcare. These
incentives don't have to be monetary benefits either.

If the incentives aren't monetary; what are they?

a gift of drugs, real health care, and a nice gun would be a good incentive
and maybe some beer for top preformers

What kinda beer? Throw in a couple of topless dancers and you got a deal!

Well I didn't mean to imply all forced measures should be dropped from the books. If the outcome of your action harms another person then it should
still be illegal. And see those are easier debates to have because in order to show harm, you have to have an injured party.

Sorry I didn't mean to imply that I wanted more government. I actually feel my solutions would require less government. It would definitely require
a complete rewrite of the tax code. Also it's a lot easier to take a benefit away then to ruin their life. All it can take is JUST the implication of
wrong doing by the justice department and your life could be ruined forever, let alone going to jail. My solution would STOP putting people in jail
unless they absolutely deserved it

Relationship injury . . . father with his children--those sorts of injuries are rampant with little to no recourse on the part of the fathers . . .

The herbicides e.g. ROUNDUP polluting ground waters virtually far and wide and damaging children's DNA and now in breast milk . . . will be injuring
millions for evidently a very long time to come--unless God cleansing it from the planet after Armageddon.

The GMO injuries to countless millions are another case in point.

Then there's the depleted uranium spread over so much of the Middle East.

There's the injuries of the increasingly pervasive RF [radio frequency] pollution from cell phone towers and other sources damaging lots of sensitive
organs in millions of people.

And, I'm still more than suspicious of the whole CHEMTRAIL stuff . . . I don't for a minute believe it's benign.

And there's fluoride in tap waters and showers far and wide.

Mercury poisoning is overly plentiful as well.

on and on and on the list could go.

So, clearly illegalities don't seem to bother the elite much regardless of how Draconian the results of their corporate and FEDeral evils are.

Would your proposal give such evil jerks more of a green light? Probably.

I'm still in favor of less coercion. Heavy handed coercion just has far more chances of either starting out evil to begin with--and/or resulting in
horrific evil before it gets very far.

I think the evils of the elite will not be moderated or punished this side of Armageddon--except by God in His diverse ways . . . that can be very
specific and very tailored to the individual evil doers quite incredibly thoroughly and extremely justly . . . even though very delayed from the human
standpoint.

Still . . . championing less coercion is a worthy thing to do. I cheer the effort wholeheartedly.
.

This brings me to my ultimate point, the government should take a cue from ATS and stop trying to force everyone to comply. Instead, it should try to
create positive incentives to comply. Give the people an incentive to NOT do drugs. Give the people an incentive to get their own healthcare. These
incentives don't have to be monetary benefits either.

If the incentives aren't monetary; what are they?

a gift of drugs, real health care, and a nice gun would be a good incentive
and maybe some beer for top preformers

What kinda beer? Throw in a couple of topless dancers and you got a deal!

There is no way we could completely fix bad behavior. It is impossible to shoot for this goal. One must be realistic when applying solutions. Again
this is a failing of our government. Too often our elected leaders try to placate literally everyone at once. Well if two different groups are
disagreeing, placate them both results in stuff like the ACA. By trying to give everyone affordable health care yet at the same time trying to prop up
the very industry that doing something like that would destroy creates a HUGE contradiction and we end up with the convoluted mess that we have
now.

To be honest, I really have no idea how to root out the corruption, I'm just trying to offer solutions to the problems that I see before my eyes. I
saddens me to know that a layman such as I can see the answer before my eyes, which means that the people in charge see the same answers yet disregard
them.

This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributors. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership who maintains strict editorial agnosticism and simply provides a collaborative venue for free expression.